Conventional boat cleats having a base that is secured to a deck or rail and outwardly tapered portions that extend from opposite ends of a top of the base have, for very many years, proven eminently satisfactory for securing lines that are usually required to bear very high tensile load. But even experienced sailors are often unable to fasten a line securely to such cleats using only one hand or to release a line in a hurry. Particularly, on docking, one man making fast the bow line must do so very rapidly to catch another line astern before the boat swings out.
For these reasons continuing attempts have been made to devise an improved cleat to which a line might be more quickly and easily fastened and released.
In U.S. Pat. No. 533,760 to Vachon U-plates are swingably bolted to a cleat for wedging in a rope. This device would clearly require two hands, one to manipulate the rope and one the U-plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,493,490 to Holzapfel describes a rope holder wherein an anchor rope passes through an eye into a spring-actuated wedge. It is a feature of cleats that the line end does not have to be available to make the line secure. This feature is absent from the Holzapfel device which also provides very little of the "capstan effect" provided by cleats that is needed for high tensile loads.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,126,859 to Bigelow describes two parallel spring-mounted plates that also require two hands for connecting to a rope or line and also require a spring assembly below deck.
My invention has the advantage that it greatly increases the high capstan effect of standard cleats to sustain very heavy loads.
It has the further advantage that a line can be tied or released to it quickly, using only one hand.
An important further advantage resides in the fact that the benefits of my invention can be simply achieved by adding elements to existing cleats.